Heaven not guaranteed; do your best on Earth anyway

AM Psalm 56, 57, [58] • PM Psalm 64, 65
Gen. 19:1-17(18-23)24-29 • Heb. 11:1-12 • John 6:27-40

According to Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, good works may be inspired by faith but can’t of themselves buy your way into Heaven. Confusingly, St. Paul cites Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob pleasing God with their combination of brave deeds as much as for their faith. Christ gets to decide entrance to Heaven because His death on the cross gained salvation for any and all that He chooses.

According to some dispensations we are predestined for Heaven or Hell, and while we are said to have free will that one might think should play a role in our getting into Heaven, Christ actually provides irresistible grace to the predestined-to-be-saved. Technically, these predestined can utterly denounce Christ and live a life of cruelty to others, but they will have also been predestined from the beginning of time to repent in the nick of time.

Is this fair? What’s a guy to do? I am irresistibly (but ungracefully) built to believe in something and to belong to a faith community, so I believe in doing right here on Earth even without any guarantee of any Heaven....and hey, you can’t beat Episcopalian Liturgy! Some might say that I am soteriologically an Arminian (It’s really complicated; look it up). I tell them, No. I’m Lithuanian, and since we were the last Europeans to have been pretty much forcefully converted to Christianity (1387), I probably just need more time to get it right.

Written by Tony Stankus

Tony Stankus, soon to be 71, is a Distinguished Professor and the Health Sciences Librarian at the U of A. He notes that there are still 5100 officially registered pagans in Lithuania today. If they were to migrate to Fayetteville, I am sure they’d be welcomed at St. Paul’s...but probably not allowed to start individual sacrificial fires in the pews.